What a Candle Can Do
by darkgemwildcat
Summary: Marks POV on Roger's and Mimi's relationship, and how Roger has chaned because of her. I SUCK AT SUMMARIES! ROGER/MIMI rated T cuz its RENT. My first RENT fic so be nice!


**A/N: Yeah, considering I am working on 11 stories, currently, some publish and some not, it wasn't too bright of me to write another fic. Bu hey, I couldn't resist! Also, this is my first RENT fic. Please tell me what you think; because I'm so used to writing Wicked, my brain is hardwired to Elphaba. And I want to be sure I'm getting the characterization right. So please review! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own RENT; sorry I'm not that creative and awesome. *cries in a corner***

Mark's P.O.V

They say time changes people. Well I don't agree. I think it's the events in life that change people. I had always known this, but never fully understood what it meant until I witnessed it first-hand happening to Roger.

He used to be full of life. It's hard to believe, I know, but it's true. I guess he fell from his grace from a variety of things. The first of which was one April Ericsson.

When I first met her, it was after one of Rogers shows. She had seemed nice enough, but for the most part she pretended I wasn't there and ignored me, Roger, on the other hand, was basically infatuated with the red head. I don't remember when I found out she was a junkie, but by the time I did, I think it was too late. Roger had already gotten hooked.

That was the second thing, but come to think of it, it was just the second in a chain of events that led to Rogers's downfall. That stuff destroys someone's life, until they don't even have a life left. Roger certainly wasn't any different. It consumed his life, and it led to disaster.

April's suicide and the discovery of her and Rogers HIV was the final straw, the finale of the tragic film, the last horrific scene before the credits roll, leaving the audience in tears. Roger was now a broken man, shattered into so many pieces that no matter how hard you try to put them back together, they keep falling apart again and again, time after time. Collins and I worked day and night to get him clean, but to say it was difficult would be an understatement. Luckily, Collins was around often in the first few months, because I knew I couldn't have held Roger back by myself if he decided to make a break for it and pay a little visit to The Man.

Finally it seemed things were looking on the bright side. Roger had been purged of heroin forever, Collins was back to teaching the young minds of America about his theory of actual reality, and I was filming, again. But even though Roger was clean he wasn't healed. Almost like when someone rips up a picture you had worked so hard on in to a dozen pieces, then you attempt to put it back together with tape and glue. But the cracks are still there, and you can see how each piece had been torn from one whole, and it's never actually fixed. Well I tried to put the pieces back together, but it was almost an impossible task.

He was torn up like that picture over April's death and his discovery of his disease. He had sunken into a depression to say the least. I don't know if following April and killing himself as well ever crossed his mind, I was too scared to ask; maybe because I was afraid of the answer, or maybe I thought it would put the idea into his mind. I don't know. Aside from his depression, he had gotten angry with just about everyone and everything. I have had plenty of black eyes to prove that.

Before Christmas of 1989 I assumed that Roger was going to stay in that lifeless, angry state until he died. There was no way that I, or anyone else for that matter, could foresee a certain girl with a candle dancing her way into Roger's life that faithful night.

When I first learned about that night when Mimi came into the loft with her candle from Roger, I could see she was good for him, and even though pretended to be disinterested, I could see otherwise, there was something in his eyes that I hadn't seen in a long time, a little spark to them.

Later though, when he blew up at her when they met again, the spark had dimmed, but it wasn't gone. It was around this time I had learned Mimi was also a junkie, like April had been. And I can only guess how Roger must have been feeling. Maybe he thought she was a bad influence on him, and would only get him hooked again, maybe he was still upset about April's death, maybe because he didn't want to hurt her by giving her the disease, or maybe he was scared of falling in love again. It was probably all of them to a certain degree. But all that vanished the night in the Life Cafe when Roger found out that Mimi was HIV positive too.

Now he wasn't afraid. It wasn't as though he had never been depressed in the first place, but it was as though Mimi had miraculously managed to put the dozens of pieces together when I couldn't. She was all he could talk about! Mimi this, Mimi that. I was ready to hit him over the head with his guitar more than once. Besides that I couldn't deny the fact that Roger had changed. He was full of life again. But all things change.

I can't begin to imagine what must be going on in Rogers head, even now. Honestly it seems like a semi-dark place to me. So I can only guess what he was dealing with in the past year. He was in love with Mimi, but he didn't know how long they had each other for. He was afraid of losing her and didn't want to see her die. He was angry that despite his best efforts he couldn't get her clean. He became the Roger that existed before Mimi. It was almost like she was never there.

I'm just glad he came to his senses before it was too late, he found his inspiration to write that song from Mimi, just as I found mine to finish my film from Angels memory. As he sat singing to her on that cold December night, I knew he regretted leaving, and that he truly loved her, more than he had loved April. I thought I was going to lose another friend that night, but Mimi had miraculously recovered. Roger's song had brought her back. I'm glad he doesn't let that go to his head.

I guess you can say Mimi was a candle that lit the way for Roger. She was his light. His song.

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